Diesel-Electric Torpedo Submarine

677 Lada/1650 Amur class

D. (m3):

1675

Speed (kts):

21

Dimensions (m):

67x7.1x?

M./Engine:

diesel
and electric motors

Diving depth:

250max

Range:

650/6000

Armament:

Missiles:

na

Torpedoes:

6/533 mm VA-111 (w:
c/nucl) Total: 18

Two diesel-electric submarines of a new, fourth postwar generation have been laid down at
the Admiralteiskiye Verfi state-owned shipyard in St. Petersburg. One submarine (Project
677 Lada), designated Sankt Peterburg, is being built for Russia's Navy, and the other
(Amur-1650) is intended for export.

Both submarines are part of
the same project and differ only in customer requirements and operational
conditions. The submarines will have high submerged cruising range and endurance, combat
efficiency and reliability, and low acoustic signature (characteristics of the Amur-1650
submarine are given in Table 1).

In the Jan/Feb '95 issue,
Military Parade described in detail Amur-class submarines with a normal displacement of
550 to 1,850 m3, which were developed by the Rubin Central Marine Design Bureau. The
magazine quoted the Project's General Designer Yuri Kormilitsin as saying: "The
submarine has been conceived as a kind of an underwater sea hunter, capable of destroying
any target  surface naval ships, transport vessels, or submarines  using
torpedoes, missiles, mines and also with the help of frogmen."

The Rubin-designed submarine of the previous generation (Project 877, Kilo
class) was described in the West as a "black hole in the ocean" for its low
level of noise which prevented its detection. The use of state-of-the-art acoustic
protection systems and original engineering innovations on Amur-class submarines will make
them several times quieter than Kilo-class submarines. Amurs are well-suited to their
underwater environment. Their sonar equipment includes highly sensitive direct-
listening transducers at the forward end and a towed transducer array.

Control of the submarine, its
armament and equipment is highly automated and carried out from operators' consoles
concentrated in the main control room.

Admiralteiskie Verfi has vast
experience in building such vessels. The shipyard's Director General Vladimir Alexandrov
said at the laying-down ceremony that the Sankt Peterburg is the 300th submarine built by
Admiralteiskie Verfi. The shipyard's vessels are eagerly purchased by foreign navies. In
November and December 1997 alone, two submarines (Projects 636 and 877 EKM) were turned
over to foreign customers.

The construction
of the Amur-1650 submarine has been made possible owing to efforts of the Morskaya
Tekhnika (Marine Equipment) financial and industrial group, which includes Admiralteiskie
Verfi, the Rubin Central Marine Design Bureau, Incombank, and the Central Company of the
Morskaya Tekhnika FIG. The financial and industrial group is funding research and
development efforts and the purchase of materials and accessories.

"The participation of
commercial structures in the funding of military-technical cooperation projects is not
something new," the Director General of the Central Company of the Morskaya Tekhnika
FIG Igor Bakhmetyev said. "We can recall the supply of MiG fighters abroad. Now our
task is to organize optimum financial schemes to make it possible to conduct research and
development and purchase the required equipment for the Amur's export version. On the
whole, the pooling of budgetary and extra-budgetary funds for the construction of
submarines of a new generation for the Russian Navy and for export will help save a lot of
money."

At the laying-down ceremony,
the privilege to embed the plaque on the Sankt Peterburg submarine was granted to the
Commander-in-Chief of Russia's Navy Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov and St. Petersburg Deputy
Mayor Yuri Antonov. The plaque of the Amur-1650 submarine was laid down by the President
of the Morskaya Tekhnika FIG, the General Designer and Head of the Rubin Central Marine
Design Bureau Academician Igor Spassky, and a departmental head of the Rosvoorouzhenie
State Corporation, Victor Kapustin.

The ceremony was also
attended by the Head of the Department of Defense Strategic Programs of Russia's Ministry
of Economics Oleg Yefimov, other officials, workers and engineers of Admiralteiskie Verfi
and Rubin, numerous guests and reporters.